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Friday, June 15, 2012

Ground Beef Burgers

Finally, summer BBQ season is here.

We love to fire up the BBQ on a hot summer evening and have supper on the deck or a picnic on the lawn. It stays cooler in the house if we do not turn on the oven and cook supper and it's fun too! We play in the backyard until dinner is ready and then have our supper with our toes in the grass and the sun on our face.

It is wonderful!

I watch for ground beef on sale so I can make burgers for BBQ season. I try to buy extra if there is room in our budget and then I make up a whole bunch of burgers and freeze them so we can just grab some out of the freezer when we want to BBQ.

I guess that it could be called freezer cooking - but technically I do not cook the burgers before freezing them. I just prep them so we can throw them on the BBQ when we want to.

We have found that making the burgers ourselves is much less expensive than buying pre-made frozen burgers from the store and they taste much better. We know exactly what ingredients go into them, which is great too. If you do not eat beef, you can substitute another type of ground meat; turkey, pork, chicken or whatever your preference.

I make my own breadcrumbs in the food processor with the leftover ends from loaves of bread and sometimes include leftover cereal or cracker crumbs. I like to use the pasta sauce spices from Epicure in our burgers for something a little different but salt and pepper work just fine too. We get the spices from a vendor at the farmer's marker in the summer.

Our recipe changes based on what is in the cupboard and what we feel like. The basic recipe is below, but feel free to change it up and make it your own.I use my KitchenAid mixer to do the mixing for me - do not mix the meat mixture too long or you will have tough burgers. You can mix everything by hand as well. All measurements are approximate.

1. Make the bread crumbs in the food processor. Add spices and mix for another few seconds to mix them in well.
2. Put ground beef, applesauce and egg in a bowl.
3. Add breadcrumbs and mix well.
4. Form into burgers and place on baking sheet. I put a layer of wax paper on the baking sheet, burgers on top, a layer of wax paper, then a piece of cardboard, then wax paper, then burgers, you get the idea. The pieces of cardboard in between keep the burgers from smooshing down into a big blob.

5. Place in freezer until frozen. Once frozen, remove the burgers from the baking sheet and store in a resealable bag until ready to use them.

Cook them on the BBQ, on the stove or in the oven - however you like them.